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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

asteriskmag.com

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#651

Post by bnjms »

ethbr1 wrote: post #626
lexandstuff wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of wearing a mask is to protect other people from your respiratory droplets. Please wear a mask when you're sick.

It's still mind boggling to me that governments didn't say "Don't wear a mask for yourself -- wear one to save your neighbor." Sure, there would have been some people who ignored it because they're jackasses, but I can't believe we wouldn't be in a better place today. Both in terms of public scientific- and community- appreciation.

They did in the US as well. It’s disappointing US leadership flip flopped on masks enough times that anti-mask started to make sense to people.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#652

Post by jordanb »

ar-nelson wrote: post #200
JohnMakin wrote: post #85

One of a few issues I have with groups like these, is that they often confidently and aggressively spew a set of beliefs that on their face logically follow from one another, until you realize they are built on a set of axioms that are either entirely untested or outright nonsense. This is common everywhere, but I feel especially pronounced in communities like this. It also involves quite a bit of navel gazing that m…

I find Yudowsky-style rationalists morbidly fascinating in the same way as Scientologists and other cults. Probably because they seem to genuinely believe they're living in a sci-fi story. I read a lot of their stuff, probably too much, even though I find it mostly ridiculous. The biggest nonsense axiom I see in the AI-cult rationalist world is recursive self-improvement. It's the classic reason superintelligence tak…

It's kinda weird how the level of discourse seems to be what you get when a few college students sit around smoking weed. Yet somehow this is taken as very serious and profound in the valley and VC throw money at it.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#654

Post by toasterlovin »

meowface wrote: post #505
skrebbel wrote: post #246

This article is beautifully written, and it's full of proper original research. I'm sad that most comments so far are knee-jerk "lol rationalists" type responses. I haven't seen any comment yet that isn't already addressed in much more colour and nuance in the article itself.

Asterisk is basically "rationalist magazine" and the author is a well-known rationalist blogger, so it's not a surprise that this is basically the only fair look into this phenomenon - compared to the typical outside view that rationalism itself is a cult and Eliezer Yudkowsky is a cult leader, both of which I consider absurd notions.

> the typical outside view that rationalism itself is a cult and Eliezer Yudkowsky is a cult leader, both of which I consider absurd notions

Cults are a whole biome of personalities. The prophet does not need to be the same person as the leader. They sometimes are and things can be very ugly in those cases, but they often aren’t. After all, there are Christian cults today even though Jesus and his supporting cast have been dead for approaching 2k years.

Yudkowsky seems relatively benign as far as prophets go, though who knows what goes on in private (I’m sure some people on here do, but the collective We do not). I would guess that the failure mode for him would be a David Miscavige type who slowly accumulates power while Yudkowsky remains a figurehead. This could be a girlfriend or someone who runs one of the charitable organizations (controlling the purse strings when everyone is dependent on the organization for their next meal is a time honored technique). I’m looking forward to the documentaries that get made in 20 years or so.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#655

Post by toasterlovin »

knallfrosch wrote: post #403
skrebbel wrote: post #246

This article is beautifully written, and it's full of proper original research. I'm sad that most comments so far are knee-jerk "lol rationalists" type responses. I haven't seen any comment yet that isn't already addressed in much more colour and nuance in the article itself.

I think it's perfectly fine to read these articles, think "definitely a cult" and ignore whether they believe in spaceships, or demons, or AGI. The key takeaway from the article is that if you have a group leader who cuts you off from other people, that's a red flag – not really a novel, or unique, or situational insight.

> The key takeaway from the article is that if you have a group leader who cuts you off from other people, that's a red flag

Even better: a social group with a lot of invented lingo is a red flag that you can see before you get isolated from your loved ones.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#656

Post by meowface »

booleandilemma wrote: post #637
meowface wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's considered the father of rationalism and the father of AI doomerism. He wrote this famous article in Time magazine a few years ago: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no... His book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies comes out in a month: https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuma... You can find more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky

You didn't mention LessWrong, the rationalist website he founded and the reason he got famous in the first place. Is he trying to distance himself from it now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong

Sorry, I considered it a given and didn't think to include it. That's my bad. That's definitely by far what he's most known for. He most certainly is not trying to distance himself from it.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#657

Post by nobody9999 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #121
andy99 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they were making fun of the "Moonies" so she was probably able to rationalize it. Pretty sure Isaac Hayes quit South Park over their making fun of scientologists.

I read recently that he suffered a serious medical event atound that time and it was actually cult members speaking on his behalf that withdrew him from the show. I think it was a relative of his claiming this.

>I read recently that he suffered a serious medical event atound that time and it was actually cult members speaking on his behalf that withdrew him from the show.

I saw him perform after he left the show and several months before he passed. He looked pretty unhealthy and I'm glad I had the chance to see him before that happened, He obviously was having some medical issues, but didn't discuss them during his performance.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#658

Post by yunwal »

lordnacho wrote: post #211
JohnMakin wrote: post #85

One of a few issues I have with groups like these, is that they often confidently and aggressively spew a set of beliefs that on their face logically follow from one another, until you realize they are built on a set of axioms that are either entirely untested or outright nonsense. This is common everywhere, but I feel especially pronounced in communities like this. It also involves quite a bit of navel gazing that m…

> I immediately become suspicious of anyone who is very certain of something Me too, in almost every area of life. There's a reason it's called a conman: they are tricking your natural sense that confidence is connected to correctness. But also, even when it isn't about conning you, how do people become certain of something? They ignored the evidence against whatever they are certain of. People who actually know what…

> how do people become certain of something?

They see the same pattern repeatedly until it becomes the only reasonable explanation? I’m certain about the theory of gravity because every time I drop an object it falls to the ground with a constant acceleration.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#659

Post by DoctorOetker »

toasterlovin wrote: post #655
knallfrosch wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's perfectly fine to read these articles, think "definitely a cult" and ignore whether they believe in spaceships, or demons, or AGI. The key takeaway from the article is that if you have a group leader who cuts you off from other people, that's a red flag – not really a novel, or unique, or situational insight.

> The key takeaway from the article is that if you have a group leader who cuts you off from other people, that's a red flag Even better: a social group with a lot of invented lingo is a red flag that you can see before you get isolated from your loved ones.

By this token, most scientists would be considered cultists: normal people don't have "specific tensile strength" or "Jacobian" or "Hermitian operator" etc in their vocabulary. "Must be some cult"?

Edit: it seems most people don't understand what I'm pointing out.

Having terminology is not the red flag.

Having intricate terminology without a domain is the red flag.

In science or mathematics, there are enormous amounts of jargon, terms, definitions, concepts, but they are always situated in some domain of study.

The "rationalists" (better call them pseudorationalists) invent their own concepts without actual corresponding domain, just life. It's like kids re-inventing their generation specific words each generation to denote things they like or dislike, etc.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#660

Post by DoctorOetker »

jl6 wrote: post #187
JohnMakin wrote: post #85

One of a few issues I have with groups like these, is that they often confidently and aggressively spew a set of beliefs that on their face logically follow from one another, until you realize they are built on a set of axioms that are either entirely untested or outright nonsense. This is common everywhere, but I feel especially pronounced in communities like this. It also involves quite a bit of navel gazing that m…

I don’t think it’s just (or even particularly) bad axioms, I think it’s that people tend to build up “logical” conclusions where they think each step is a watertight necessity that follows inevitably from its antecedents, but actually each step is a little bit leaky, leading to runaway growth in false confidence. Not that non-rationalists are any better at reasoning, but non-rationalists do at least benefit from some…

Would you consider the formal verification community to be "rationalists"?
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